Mobile phone marketing, otherwise known as SMS marketing, is the present evolution of direct promotion. Direct promotion has always been favored by businesses as a specialized and focused method of reaching potential customers and, with the advent of mobile phones, digital marketing has increased in usage. SMS marketing is perhaps best defined as the practice of marketing products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a quick, appropriate, personal and economic way.
The most prevalent form of mobile marketing is SMS marketing, which has expanded very quickly in Europe and Asia. It is estimated that several hundred million promotional messages are sent via SMS every month in Europe alone. SMS stands for ’short message service’ and is a communication form unique to mobile phones where a short message can be simply sent to any mobile phone user. As well as sending content to consumers, advertisers can often encourage consumers to participate in promotional and brand exposure promotions by encouraging consumers to text a particular number at an event in order to enter a competition, to receive a prize or to have their text displayed on a multimedia wall at an event. All of these methods involves the consumer through the medium of SMS and creates brand awareness.
There are many other types of mobile marketing. One example is sending messages via MMS, which is a multimedia version of SMS, allowing consumers to receive texts with color, pictures and video. There is also mobile web marketing, where brands promote marketing goals through websites accessed by mobile phones. Publicists often make innovative use of digital marketing such as location-based services where consumers are offered bespoke promotions and other network-related information and promotional material based on their whereabouts. With the variety of methods and choices available to promoters, it is unsurprising that a recent marketing survey found that 89% of major brands planned to advertise their products through mobile marketing by the end of 2008.
SMS marketing is an example of what is known within the industry as “push” marketing. The idea behind push marketing is that that the business has to send (push) the messages to the customer in order for the material to be received. This is opposite to “pull” marketing, a more unobtrusive form of promotion, where it is customers who seek out the content from sources such as websites or blogs.
There are lots of advantages to digital marketing. Primarily, the attraction is that this mode of promotion can be tailored to the customer. This is the gold standard in marketing as it means getting the campaign specifically to the people it’s aimed at, rather than wasting money on an broad campaign. The specificity allowed by this form of advertising, which results in a more cost-effective campaign, is one example why a high return on investment is possible with digital marketing. Another advantage of digital marketing is the detailed tracking and reporting of users it permits. Through this medium, marketers can track how many customers received their material and also access detailed data about each subscriber such as their name, their age, their demographic and where they’re located. This permits a company to develop profiles of their subscribers; data which then guides future promotional campaigns and, ideally, their success.
It is noted in the industry that push marketing, of which digital marketing is a type, can help build new cash flows and brand exposure if it is used correctly and appropriately. This is because it makes subscribers aware of recent events that they may not know to seek out already and the way the information is phrased, and even the fact that the material is being delivered by a contemporary, cool medium such as text, can say a lot about a brand and a company.
There are, however, some negatives to digital marketing. By its very nature, it requires a mechanism - the mobile phone - to be able to deliver information. The company, as well, must make use of specialized hardware and software in order to deliver the information to consumers, which can involve sizeable costs. Another disadvantage is the fact that digital marketing is heavily regulated by the telecommunications industry in response to public worries about what data and promotions they get shown. Most Western countries have laws in place that request marketers to gain the approval of consumers before promotional material is received by them and must clearly provide them with an ‘opt out’ choice if they want to stop receiving content. If companies are discovered to be in breach of these laws, network providers can block marketing content by marketers.
As mobile technology grows, digital marketing will certainly continue to gather in importance.
